


lovers before the war

by framboise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguing, Arranged Marriage, Complicated Relationships, Cousin Incest, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Drabble Collection, F/M, First Time, Light Angst, Loss of Virginity, Melancholy, Older Man/Younger Woman, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Battle, Resolved Sexual Tension, The War for the Dawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 18:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/framboise/pseuds/framboise
Summary: A series ofstandalone multishipping drabblesset at Winterfell in various canon-divergent AUs before the War for the Dawn begins.-Chapter 1: northern riches(2k) -Petyr/Sansa- arranged marriage AU"You like doing this here, don't you," she says, words knowing, manner haughty, though he is close enough to see the tremble of her breath, to feel how her body sways towards him as he unties her girdle. "Defiling me in my father's chambers."-Chapter 2: forged in the flames(1k)-Arya/Gendry- 8x01 AU"No one speaks of it, of where you were before. Even though you're their lady, a Stark. No one seems worried that you turned up like this.""Like what?" she asks, standing up, hurt now, her body thrumming for a fight."Like a weapon," he says, his voice breaking as he passes a hand across his mouth.-Chapter 3: down in the crypts(1.2k) -Jon/Sansa- 8x01 parentage reveal AU"Why must we keep arguing?" he asks."Because you keep being stupid," she retorts, ignoring the heat in her belly, the way his eyes keep catching on her lips.





	1. northern riches (Petyr/Sansa)

**Author's Note:**

> Watched the first episode of the new season and my mind went spinning into various pre-war AUs set at Winterfell so here they are in drabble form.  
> (please ignore any plot handwaving needed)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is an AU where the Ramsay plotline never happened (as in all my fics), but Sansa still left the Vale after discovering some of Petyr's treachery and reunited with Jon.  
> ...and then Petyr arrived at Winterfell with the army of the Vale and his wagons of food/supplies/gifts while Jon was down south and wooed her into marrying him (*handwaves lots of things*)

 

 

"You like doing this here, don't you," she says, words knowing, manner haughty, though he is close enough to see the tremble of her breath, to feel how her body sways towards him as he unties her girdle.

"Doing what?" he murmurs and pushes her hair to one side, kisses that thrumming pulse on her neck.

"Defiling me in my father's chambers."

He huffs a pleased laugh, grips her tighter around the waist as her hands flutter on his shoulders, as her head tips back. He is so hard it hurts and yes, she has the right of it, there is something pleasing, something wickedly triumphant, at doing this here, at wedding and bedding Winterfell's princess, at taking her while her father, and her uncle, and all the Starks, lie dead and cold in the crypts underneath them, impotent to stop him, this little lord from the fingers who is now lord of Winterfell and who holds the north just as he holds their most precious jewel in his arms.

And what a jewel she is, he thinks, breath catching as he slides the wedding gown from her shoulders, as he unplucks the laces from her stays, kissing across her pale shoulders, drinking in her every sigh, her body's every shiver.

He saw glimpses of her in the Vale, of course, kissed her, held her, but he has never seen her like this, never been able to touch her so freely.

"Lord Baelish," she says in a gasp as her fingers clutch at his clothes, as his hands roam over her shift of YiTish silk, her hair like a curtain of flame in the shimmer of the candles, of the golden lamps - for though he might have kept the bed, he has filled this room with finer objects brought from the Vale, from his own stores, alongside the countless wagons of food and supplies, the army, that bought his way into the hearts of the North, that paid for her hand in marriage. He had seen her eyes light up like a little girl again when he showed her his gifts - the tapestries and fine rugs, the golden trays and silver chests, the goblets and curtains and trinkets, when he gave her the gown and jewels and glittering girdle she would wear tonight, and it warmed him, soothed an old hurt. She might be a player now, she might hold more power over him than she did as his ward in the Vale, but she was still that girl too, the one who dreamed of pretty things, of riches, just as he did as a boy.

"Call me Petyr," he says as he nudges her back to sit on the bed, hair curling around her bare shoulders, the rosy tips of her teats showing through the silk of her shift. "What a picture you make, sweetling, what a beauty you are," he murmurs, letting the words spill from his lips easily.

Her eyes flutter, he sees her toes curl, and then she recovers her wits, leaning back on her hands as if displaying herself to him, making him bite a lip on a groan. "And you, my lord, _Petyr_ , shall you be removing your own clothes tonight? Or do you simply wish to watch? Surely your courage shall not defeat you now?"

He laughs. "My little wolf, still such sharp claws."

She smiles and he undresses quickly, trying not to be distracted by each of her movements, by the sight of her here, his to have. She blushes when he is naked, he can see it even by candlelight and it thrills him. He might have taught her things a father should not teach his daughter, given her illicit books to read and answered questions a daughter should not have, encouraged her to flirt and tease her suitors, but she is still an innocent in this, untouched.

Did he know from the beginning that he was to be her only true suitor, were the others just a ruse, a lie he told them both? He is still uncertain. But all that matters is this, he thinks, as he sinks to his knees before her, as his hands slide up her calves, lifting the hem of her shift, pressing kisses to her trembling thighs and nudging them to open. All that matters is that he has gambled, he has thrown the die, and won the whole damned pile of gold.

She'll never be rid of him now, Sansa knows, her protector, her kidnapper, her father, her teacher, her lover, her family's traitor and perhaps their salvation too, should the food and army he has brought see them through the long night. It is easy to be principled when you have nothing at stake, she has learned, and, she thinks, as she threads her fingers in her husband's hair, as he shoulders her thighs apart and has her whimpering and squirming with pleasure, it is easy to forget some of those principles for the sake of more animal concerns - pleasure, safety, comfort.

He won't betray her again, she knows it, and so does he, their power over one another is equally balanced now and she is no longer a quivering girl, a mouse, she is a wolf like her ancestors. But, oh, those very same ancestors are turning in their graves tonight, she knows, and tries to search for some measure of shame underneath her desire.

She needed a husband, needed an alliance, not least after her brother had abandoned her to hold the North alone, and by every count bar one - his treachery against her family - Petyr was the very best choice.

And would any of them, these northern boys, these gruff men with sodden furs and clumsy paws, a sly voice inside of her says, be as good as this, be as eager for her to find her pleasure, she thinks, as her back arches on the bed, as her husband groans against her cunt, as she wails and peaks.

"Oh gods," she gasps as she feels his tongue lave through her folds, as he sups on her as if she is the finest Arbor Gold.

This is her bed, she thinks – as she lifts her head and sees his smirk, as he presses a parting kiss on top of her curls and rises up on his arms to crawl up over her – and she must lay in it.

"You're warm," she finds herself saying woozily as he presses over her, as he brushes her hair from her blushing face with gentle fingers just as his other hand palms her backside, lifts her hips so he might fit between them.

"The world outside this room is cold, my lady, but our bed shall always be warm," he says and kisses her, nipping at her bottom lip, soothing the mark with his tongue. His voice is rich with humour but she sees an earnest hope in his face that she answers with her own. Let this marriage not be her undoing, she prays, let her find a small flame to keep her going through the long night to come, even if it is a flame that might scorch her fingertips, even if it a flame that burns atop the ashes of her family's ruin.

"If you betray me again—" she says, voice turning to a hiss as his fingers press inside her.

"Your hand shall hold the dagger, I know, sweetling," he says, holding her gaze as he sets his cock to her cunt, "and what a sweet death it would be," he says with a grunt, with a puff of hot breath across her lips as he takes her and makes her his.

She whines, her head tipping back on the pillow, her legs rising around his hips as he rocks into her, as she feels herself open for him with an aching burn of pleasure.

"You're soft as silk inside," he murmurs, his voice deeper than she has ever heard, one of his hands on the nape of her neck to keep her there with him, to kiss her between groans, swallowing her wild moans. "Soft and hot and wet and _tight_ ," he grunts, "you're perfect, Sansa." His hand slides down between them, he sets his thumb right where she needs it. "And you're mine," he murmurs, "aren't you."

"Petyr—" she says, though whether she is about to correct him she does not know, as her thighs shake, as she peaks around him, digging her nails into his shoulders and making him buck his hips into her and peak with a loud moan, clutching her tightly as he spills inside of her.

To think he might have made a child tonight, an heir, has Petyr's heart thumping in his chest as he kisses her, as he gentles her whimpers, soothes the shivers of her limbs. The next little lordling of the North, the next little lady. If Brandon Stark only knew what was to come when he had laughed at him, when he had jeered as he cut him down.

"Was I everything you dreamed of then?" she asks, with the raised eyebrow of a practiced flirt, with the soft uncertain eyes of a girl starved of the love and care, the praise, that should have been her due.

"You were perfect," he says, stroking a knuckle down her hot cheek, "better than all my dreams, all the pictures my mind conjured up when I was shivering in my lonely bed in the Vale after you abandoned me," and all the dreams before that, he thinks, all the lonely nights and small pitiful beds, all the sharp rungs of the ladder he clambered up, eyes fixed on the treasures to be found ahead if one was only bold enough, brave enough.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes, but she is smiling too, her body is languid, easy, in his arms.

"Oh yes, in your bed plump with silk cushions and furs and samite drapes."

"Were you thinking of it too then, my bed? While you shivered here in the wastes of the North?" he teases, shifting to lie on his back.

"Is that any way to speak of your new lands, my lord?" she asks and he feels a catch in his chest, a glow of pride, as she looks at him knowingly, her head laying on his chest, her lips plump with his kisses.

"There are some wonders here, some treasures, for certain," he says, stroking a hand through her hair, "such as the jewel in my bed."

"I am your prize," she muses, fingertips running down the scar on his chest that aches even now.

"As am I," he replies. "You may have given me a title, Sansa, but did I not give you a rich dowry? Are you not pleased by my wagons of grain, by my armies, by my gold?"

"I am well-pleased, my lord," she says and he cannot stop his hands from wandering, his fingers from searching for the proof of her pleasure.

"Oh, you are, aren't you sweetling," he says, watching her flush with embarrassment, with desire, as he strokes her, as he crooks his fingers inside of her and circles a thumb where she is pulsing hot.

"Again?" she asks breathlessly but it sounds like a request, like a demand, and far be from him to leave his little wife wanting.

"Until I have worn you out," he says, guiding her hips to rock against him, "until every person in Winterfell has heard your moans—" She digs her sharp nails into his sides, makes him breathe a laugh, but she does not push him away, she does not flinch back, he notes—"until my fingers are drenched by you, until you've rubbed your little cunt all over my face."

" _Petyr_ —" she admonishes, her voice turning into a groan as he rises up and brings her to his lap and she sits down upon him, mouth wide and eyes startled.

He shows her how to move, how to rock her hips. She is fast learner in this, as she is in all things, and soon it is he who is brought to his peak, her thighs tight around his sides, her teeth biting into his shoulder as she tried to muffle her own noises.

"Until the dawn, my love," he murmurs, close to a whisper, praying that his luck will not run out, that he might keep them safe behind these walls from all threats, old and new, that he might stay alive to see his sons and daughters grow, to see her bloom with motherhood, with rule, to see the harvest of every seed he has planted.

 

 


	2. forged in the flames (Arya/Gendry)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic takes place directly after 8x01

 

 

"Did you ever think of me on your travels?" he asks, eyes earnest with beer, flecks of metal caught in his hair that glimmer in the light.

She doesn't know why she can't stop looking at him, why she feels a flutter in her chest like nerves, why her hands twitch like they're searching for a blade.

"No. Did you?"

"No," he says with a huff, crossing his legs unsteadily where he sits on the crumbled wall.

Winterfell is loud tonight, the air glowing from the watchfires, the clatter of metal, of armour and weapons, still ringing out as the army makes their camp, as so many new faces wander through the keep.

Arya has been keeping an eye on the faces, on the soldiers and camp-followers, the advisors, the new queen. She has been trying to take their measure - a task that will take many days, a task that means she does not have time to sit here next to a simple blacksmith, and yet sit here she does, her own cup of beer in hand.

"Not even a little?" she presses, thrilled when he flushes.

She was only a child when she last knew him, when he last knew her, and she is not a child any longer, in many ways. Yet tonight is the first time she remembers being looked at like a woman.

"Well there was one time when an apprentice at the forge was so bloody annoying that I remembered you, and how annoying you were."

"I'm touched," she says, resting a hand on her chest. "You know, I had thought that all blacksmiths were as stubborn and stupid as you were, but I met many more after I left you, and it turns out, it's just you."

"So you did think of me," he says triumphantly, raising his cup and spilling some of his beer over his fingers. He frowns and then licks them and she coughs and drinks some of her own beer.

He's still frowning as he looks at her, his face turned serious.

"What?" she asks.

"No one speaks of it, of where you were before. Even though you're their lady, a Stark. No one seems worried that you turned up like this."

"Like what?" she asks, standing up, hurt now, her body thrumming for a fight.

"Like a weapon," he says, his voice breaking as he passes a hand across his mouth.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I know my way around weapons, Arya," he says darkly, rising to stand.

He's taller than her, broader, but she's not afraid, not of him, not of anyone.

"I've handled every metal, I've honed every blade, beaten every sword and axe and spear. If you place a dagger in my palm I can tell you where you got it," he says, eyes glancing at her hip, "its weaknesses, its strength. You've been forged, your edges filed into sharpness."

Her eyes are burning.

"Did you have a choice? Tell me that at least," he begs, putting a hand on her shoulder.

How should she answer that? What choices have any of them had since King's Landing?

"It was my choice to return here, my choice to come home," she says, swallowing the lump in her throat.

He nods, smiles a small smile. "Me too."

"And you'll make me that blade?" she asks, trying to fill the weighted silence between them.

"Of course, I'm halfway done already."

"Well don't rush it, I don't want something shoddily made."

He scoffs and crosses his arms and she wishes he hadn't taken his hands back, and tries not to examine that wish too closely.

"I heard you fought against the dead, that you proved yourself on the battlefield alongside my brother. You want to spar with me sometime?" she asks, lifting her chin.

"I don't want to fight you," he says mulishly.

"Coward," she bites out. She's moved closer now and so has he. "Afraid to be beaten by a girl?"

"Maybe."

"Coward," she says again, pushing him with her hands before he catches them, before she lets him catch them.

"Says you," he says and before she can retort, he kisses her and she freezes and then grabs a hold of him, pulls him against her as he groans and licks into her mouth.

"Where can we go?" he asks between hungry kisses, as her fingers search for a way into his clothes, as she tries to climb him, and does he have to be so tall?

"Follow me," she says, pulling away with a gasp and tugging him by the hand through the keep.

 

*

 

"What are my strengths?" she murmurs later, resting her head on his chest as they lay across the bed in her old rooms, her limbs aching in new and pleasant ways.

"That you're well-trained," he says, his voice sleepy, warm, in a way that makes her smile. "That you're fierce and use your emotions to fuel you, that you'll never back down from a fight," he adds, running a calloused finger down her cheek as she looks up.

She didn't know his eyes were this blue, she didn't know how warm his body would feel next to hers.

"What are my weaknesses?" she asks later, shutting her eyes tightly as the noises of the keep waking up, the march of soldiers' feet, the ringing out of hammer on metal, seep into their fragile sanctuary.

"That you'll never back down from a fight," he whispers, a sad note thrumming underneath his pride, his love.

 

 


	3. down in the crypts (Jon/Sansa)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of 8x01 where Jon found out his parentage before he left for Dragonstone (and thus hasn't had a romantic relationship with Daenerys when he returns)

 

 

"Why must we keep arguing?" he asks, nostrils flaring with anger.

"Because you keep being stupid," she retorts, ignoring the heat in her belly, the way his eyes keep catching on her lips.

He scoffs, rubs a hand across his face. "I came down here for some peace and quiet," he grits out.

"Well, I'm sorry, but you're the king, people have need of you," she states. He riles her up, Jon, he always has, but lately it's been getting worse.

"Do you have need of me?" he asks doubtfully, and she knows he means more than just today.

She crosses her arms and watches the candlelight flicker across his face. Since she found out that he wasn't who they all believed him to be, that he was her cousin and not her half-brother, she has been searching his face for differences, but has only found him becoming more familiar through her scrutiny. Except for his eyes, dark when he was a boy, darker now. When he looks at her she feels pinned, she feels her breath catch.

"Of course I do," she replies crossly.

"Well, it doesn't seem like it, it seems like you've gotten on very well here without me."

"Oh, yes," she spits out, "it's been so easy corralling warring northern houses and the Free Folk and trying to scrounge up enough food and wood, enough weapons and horses, that we might survive the war to come. And fending off marriage proposals has been particularly enjoyable."

"Marriage proposals?" he repeats, the twitch of a snarl at his lips.

There is something of the wolf about Jon, even if he is half-dragon, and there is something inside of her that likes it when he bares his teeth to protect her.

"I am the Lady of Winterfell," she shrugs, "Any man who married me while you were gone would have become its lord, would they not?"

"Not without asking me," he says, clenching his jaw.

"Well they couldn't, could they," she bites out, "because you weren't answering any ravens, you were busy with her."

"I was trying to save us, trying to make an alliance. And I brought dragons back, didn't I? And an army."

"Dragons. You _are_ a dragon," she says, moving closer, her voice dropping as if they are being overheard even now. "You need to tell people, you need to tell your aunt."

He shakes his head.

"You're the king, the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms," she says, hand reaching to cup his hot cheek.

He grabs it, her hand, and holds it there, moves his face so that her palm presses over his mouth like a muzzle.

"I'm not," he murmurs, his voice a hum against her skin.

She swallows. "You are. You're Aegon Targ—"

"I'm Jon, Jon Snow."

"Not Jon Stark?" she asks, voice wavering.

"Sansa—" he sighs and she tugs her hand away, feeling hot and ashamed, feeling stupid.

"I need to go," she says and strides away but he follows her, catches her by the arm and pulls her into him.

Her hands splay on his shoulders, on the furs that make him loom over her even though she is inches taller.

"Sansa," he says again, softer, hand flexing on her waist.

"Jon, I need to go," she says, voice thin. "And you need to tell people, you need to figure out what you want, _who_ you want."

"You weren't who I dreamed of, when I dreamed of family," he says.

She glances behind him at the long corridor of graves, at the candles lit, at the darkness beyond.

"Neither were you."

"But I did think of you," he murmurs, and strokes a thumb down her cheek, lets it sweep across her lips as her eyes flutter. "I thought of you singing."

She's not going to sing for him now, she thinks, half-hysterical, she's not going to pluck a harp out of the air and sing some sad song of love.

"Jon, we don't have time for this," she whispers.

"When then, when do we have time? The dead march upon us—"

"Don't speak of it," she shakes her head fitfully and he stops her, takes her face in his hands.

Oh gods, this is doomed, she thinks, what is she doing.

"We can't," she says, licking her lips as his breath glances across them.

His eyes are black, blacker than the night. "Some people say I came back wrong," he murmurs and moves closer, his nose sliding along her cheek, the bristles of his beard rubbing at her chin. "That I am half-animal now, half-demon."

"That you cannot die," she whispers.

"Aye." His lips brush against hers and she makes a sound, a whimper.

"You were my sister once," he continues.

"Jon," she begs.

"And this is wrong, but I don't care," he says and kisses her, tilts her head so he may better devour her as she falls against him, feeling her body heat at the rub of his tongue against hers, at the slide of his lips down to her neck, the clutch of his hands on her waist.

"Please," she says.

She wants to be taken, here, in the crypts of Winterfell, pushed up against the cold stone, her smallclothes ripped from her, and she tells him that between kisses and he obliges, has her legs up around his hips, has his fingers crooked in her cunt as he mouths at her neck, as he watches her and fumbles at his laces with his other hand.

"I thought of you," he says with a grunt as he sets the tip of his cock to her cunt. "Oh, gods, Sansa," he groans as he enters her, as she bites the leather of his jerkin to muffle her cries.

" _Fuck_ ," he swears as he begins to thrust, her body pressing against the sharp stone, and she knows she will have bruises tomorrow but she doesn't care. "You'll not marry any of them, any of the northmen," he says then, gritted between his teeth.

He is so warm inside of her, his pelvis pressing just where she needs. She grabs one of his hands and puts it on her breast, whimpers when he squeezes.

"Who are you to give orders?" she gasps.

"I am your king," he says and she feels her thighs tremble, feels a pulse of pleasure so sharp she cries out.

His words become groans as he spills inside of her, as his hips buck and press her back into the stone of Winterfell.

"My king," she says, curling a hand around the back of his neck as he looks up at her, firelight glimmering in his eyes, bruised mouth panting.

"Aye," he says, smoothing a hand up her side, making her body pulse again.

Distant voices bring them back to themselves, have him setting her down again as she winces at the scratches on her back, at the ache between her legs. He looks, she thinks, like he has been on the battlefield, like he has been mauled by some creature, some wolf.

"You have a meeting, Your Grace," she reminds him, "your advisors were looking for you."

"I'll come find you later," he says.

"Jon—"

"Later," he says, lifting her chin with his fingers, kissing her again.

He leaves her there, mind whirling, breathing in small sips of cold air, and when she walks towards the entrance a few moments after him, she keeps her eyes low so she does not glance up and see familiar stone faces staring down at her.

She'll not come down here again, not until after the war is over, after it is won, she thinks. This is a time for the living, not a time to linger amongst – to listen to – the dead.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please comment if you enjoyed these, I'd love to know what people think! :)
> 
> my tumblr: [framboise fics](http://framboise-fics.tumblr.com)


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